Ramblings.

Welcome to Issue #88, our annual Staff Picks issue. We bring you the equipment recommendations of our contributors, who pass along advice on everything from individual components to complete systems. By letting each contributor publish his own list, rather than produce one homogenized list, we have presented these recommendations in a way that allows readers to see what the individual tastes and subjective preferences of each reviewer are. To my way of thinking, this is more helpful to readers than it would be for me to come up with my own master list. I might not agree with every recommendation made, but the final choice of what to accept and what to reject should be left up to you, the reader, rather then me, the editor. There is some really helpful advice to be found in these recommendations, and I hope you enjoy reading through what our staff has to pass along.

In addition to the Staff Picks, we also bring you some reviews of both equipment and recordings. The one thing we have not included this time, sadly enough, is our Forum section. Perhaps the tragic events of September 11 have us all feeling a bit down, and venting our feelings about audio equipment has slipped way down our list of priorities. I do hope, however, that the consoling power of great music has been felt by many of our readers over the past couple of months.

First, the Bad News: The music recording industry, most notably the classical music recording industry, seems to be imploding, with every part of the system--musicians, orchestras, recording companies, distributors, retailers, and customers--feeling the effects. Some folks believe that the Internet will replace traditional distribution systems, but from my perspective at least, the problems in the distribution system are only symptoms, not the disease. SACD and DVD-A seem to be doing little or nothing to advance the cause of recorded music, and may in fact be contributing to the overall decline of the industry rather than offering hope for its recovery.

Now, the Good News: Despite the ongoing implosion, some really excellent recordings have been released lately. Our next issue will be our annual Staff Picks issue for recordings, wherein we will discuss some of the great performances recently made available. Perhaps there is hope yet.

How to Communicate with Us: To order a new subscription, change an address on an existing subscription, order back issues, or take care of other subscription-related matters, our business telephone is [phone], our business fax is [phone], our business address is 403 Darwin Drive, Snyder, NY 14226, our business e-mail address is [e-mail], and our website is www.sensiblesound.com. To correspond about any editorial matters, submit equipment for review, pass along hot audio gossip, put us on your mailing list, or just blow off steam, please write KWN directly at 9775 Mills Road, Ostrander, OH 43061. To submit a classified ad or inquire about display advertising, please give Don Nowak a call at [phone] or send him e-mail at [e-mail].

Previews of Coming Attractions: Among the equipment we have in or have been promised for review are speakers/subwoofers from Atlantic Technology, Dunlavy, Infinity, Legacy Audio, Martin-Logan, Neosonik, PSB, and Von Schweikert; components from Onkyo, Linn, and Perpetual Technologies; and much more, including plenty of music reviews, six of this, and a half-dozen of that.

-KWN

One Last Thought: "I think music in itself is healing. It's an explosive expression of humanity. It's something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we're from, everyone loves music." -- Billy Joel